Snowy Days Like This One
by SettlingSage
Summary: Golden eyes burned into hers from across the room set in a handsome face that she knew instantly. Scars the shaped of crescent moons now littered the once flawless skin she could see and the gasp she let out was more in horror than in happiness. He was there. Just a cafeteria width between them for the first time in decades. Isabella's lips twitch instinctively into a smile.
1. Chapter 1

Snowy days like this one – where the frozen rain drifted down from the sky like fairies dancing to their own individual songs to settle on the roofs but melt upon touching the ground – always reminded Isabella of the first and only time she had seen snow in her old home. Houston very rarely saw snow and Isabella knew that it had only snowed a little over 35 times since she died in 1864. The worst day of her life was the only day she'd ever seen snow in her birth place, the only time she'd seen it as a human. She remembered it crystal clearly despite the murkiness of her memories of that time, remembered opening the door, remembered the news that was delivered word by word, remembered collapsing in agony. The pain was the clearest thing. There wasn't much else she remembered from her human life anymore – time had destroyed them in the last 140 years – but the face of the man that the news was in reference to was clear as day. His wavy honey coloured hair that fell just to his collar and his laughing brown eyes that gazed down at her adoringly from his foot taller frame. She adored this man, with all she had, had married him at only sixteen years of age only to be left alone.

The cheering of boys across the cafeteria drew her attention away from the window as she shot them a scathing look before returning to her remising. This time trying to focus on her family: her sheriff father, hare-brained mother and excited little sister. She could no longer remember their faces but knew she had loved them dearly, knew they had a close family friend from across the street who had presented her at her coming of age party.

Heaving a heavy sigh in dismay at her own memory, she turned back to her book. She'd defaced the defenceless book with doodles and scribbles; a shame since it was a copy of her favourite novel. It was uncountable now how many copies of Wuthering Heights she'd had over the years since it had been written when she was still human, only just alive. It was comforting in a way to hold a piece of literature that was almost as old as she was herself. The copy her husband had managed to gift her before he left for war had long since been destroyed. Isabella pulled herself out of her thoughts violently as her thoughts took a turn towards the war.

"So I see you've met the Cullens?" a disgruntled voice appeared at her shoulder and the smell of blood washed over her. Isabelle held her breath at the sudden intrusion, angry that a human had managed to sneak up on her.

"Who?" Isabelle asked, snapping her book shut when she noticed her husband's face staring up at her. A sharp pain pierced her long still heart. Turning to find who had dare approach her when she had purposely sat at a table alone, she studied the boy. He was vaguely good looking she supposed with his light blue eyes and blonde hair but she instantly grimaced at the look in his eyes.

"Cullen," he had the audacity to sit down next to her and gesture to her book. "Technically Hale. You were drawing him?"

Isabelle frowned in confusion. It wouldn't be unusual she supposed if someone looked like her husband. He had many siblings, one of the could have married a Hale for all she knew and passed the genes down to make a Jasper look alike - Isabella sucked in a breath: she tried to avoid thinking his name as much as possible. Still they were a long way from Texas now in Washington. Unable to help herself though, Isabelle twisted to follow this kid's eyes across the room even as other's joined them.

A strange mix of emotion stole over her as she realised he was staring at the group of her kind that she sensed earlier. None of them had made any contact yet but Isabella was sure they'd have to eventually. They were a big coven compared to her lone existence. They would need to know she intended no ham to them and vice versa. As she scanned the table she realised she'd only met two of the five at the table: the bronze haired boy and the black hair girl that his arm was slung around. There three others at the table but only one caught her eyes. He had his back to her but his hair was the colour of honey, wavy and cut to his collar, his frame was lean but muscular and Isabella felt ridiculous as hope bubbled inside her.

"Who are they?" she asked in curiosity as she turned around. The table had now been filled up with two girls, one with wild curly hair and blue eyes, the other with honey streaked hair and gentle brown eyes. The curly hair girl laughed.

"That's Alice and Emmett Cullen, and Edward, Rosalie and Jasper Hale," she told her under her breath as though she someone knew they could hear her. Isabella locked onto the last name. "They all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife."

Knowing if she was human her heart would have been thudding in her chest, Isabella glanced back at the table whilst talking to her current companions, "which ones Jasper?"

She stumbled on the name but no one seemed to notice. She heard the curly one snort.

"Oh, he's the blonde one that looks like he's in pain," she said in offhand manner. "Gorgeous but odd. I'm Jessica, by the way."

"Isabella," she replied without really meaning to her gaze was fixed across the room, Having watched Jasper's back tense as she spoke her name. "Whitlock."

It had been years since she used her married name or even spoken it herself before she was signing herself up for Forks High School but watching as the Jasper across the room tensed even further and turned around to meet her eyes told her it had been the right choice.

Golden eyes burned into hers from across the room set in a handsome face that she knew instantly. Scars the shaped of crescent moons now littered the once flawless skin she could see and the gasp she let out was more in horror than in happiness. The only thing that damaged this skin was venom and with that knowledge a burning desire to know who and how many had tried to kill him rose within her. Regardless, it was still him and, as that thought took over, everything else faded. He was there. Just a cafeteria width between them for the first time in decades. She watched his eyes drink her eyes, surprise the only emotion she could identify on his face as his lips – lips she had kissed an uncountable amount of times – formed her name. Isabella's lips twitch instinctively into a smile.

"Jasper," she breathed out-loud and suddenly he was on his feet, striding towards her at a determined pace that was only slightly faster than a humans'. She rose to meet him instinctively and was pulled in by his strong arms immediately. Unable to help herself, Isabella wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled her head against him. "Jasper…Jasper."

He held her tighter as she began murmuring his name into his neck. She could feel him shaking slightly as he did so and pulled back to lay a hand on his cheek. This close she could see even more scars littering his handsome face, particularly around his jaw and neck and softly drifted a finger along the most prominent ones. He let her, standing as still as statue.

As quickly as everything had faded, it all returned twice as fast as the sound of something falling echoed across the cafeteria and Jasper's eyes zoomed from hers back the table from which he'd left. Alice, the girl she'd met in her English class that morning and dropped her tray. Glancing around the room, Isabella realised that they had the whole school attentions but at the same time Jasper's fingers twined themselves with hers and her gaze was instantly back on him without any conscious thought.

"Darlin'," his southern accent was heavy and familiar, "come with me."

Neither knowing or caring where he was taking her, she followed the light pressure of his hand in hers till they reached the car park and suddenly her back was against the wall and his lips were on hers. Isabella wasted no time wrapping her arms around her long-missed husband but before long tearfulness welled up inside her. She attempted to push it down but Jasper was already pulling back and, whilst she let him part their lips, she didn't allow him an inch away from her. He held her as she sobbed tearlessly against his chest, waves of calm reassurance and loving devotion washed around her until she could do nothing but clutch herself to his chest as she soaked it all in. Of course, her charismatic, understanding, charming Jasper would be an empath. She was sure he felt her understanding as the emotions projected to her were now more intense: loneliness of the past, disbelief and relief battling it out in equal measures, love and joy, confusion and curiosity.

"My Jasper," she breathed, finally pulling away to look at him, to study the emotions in his eyes, to just see that he was there. Before she could, however, his eyes flashed at her words, all other emotions wiped away to be replaced with burning love and he lowered her head down to kiss her. This was softer and sweet than before, filling her with love and longing.

"God, I love you," he murmured as he pulled back a couple of inches, hands still cupping her face, eyes still closed.

"After all this time?" she breathed, knowing her love for him had not diminished one bit.

His eyes flickered open revealing his topaz orbs in replace of eyes that had once been brown. A kiss was pressed to the corner of her mouth.

"I'll never stop," he vowed with his lips brushing hers.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I've had this sat in my folders for a while and figured there was no point it hiding there, even though I had no intentions of making this anymore than a one-shot. Really hope you enjoy this little addition, happy valentines day!**

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Isabella wasn't sure how they managed to get from Forks High School all the way back to her house, her beautiful walnut wooden house with its tan stone decorations, or even further into her room but quickly decided that she could spend the rest her life lying curled up in her husband's arms. Time could pass as it willed, it didn't matter anymore, and Isabelle was certain that it had been hours since they'd laid down. Neither had said a word and a calm, comforting air had settled around them. There was many things she could say. They buzzed around her head: 'you're alive' even though they weren't really; 'I missed you' was something he could already feel; 'you should have changed me yourself' an unfair accusation. Each sentence was almost said but none came out, none wanted to be the start of their first proper conversation in 142 years.

"What happened to you?" Isabelle whispered, fingers grasping themselves into fabric of his shirt – expensive, new. Jasper took a deep breath and the mood was broken. His hand rose to rest on her neck as Isabella moved to meet his eyes – dark and golden. Moving her own hand to a scar on his jaw line was almost as nerve-racking as the first time she'd placed her hand in his arm when they were human. It was cold under her fingers but she didn't move her hand. Instead she traced it gently with her index finger, drifting slowly to trace others on his neck. He didn't say anything, only moved his head to allow her to see. Even without his gift, Isabelle would have known the trust that movement meant. She knew Jasper like the back of her hand. Or at least she used to. A stabbing pain to accompany that thought caused her to pull away.

Jasper turned his head to her with painful slowness and took the hand that remained floating in the air. His kissed her gently and Isabella smiled – his gaze when he looked at her matched the look he'd given her when he'd first kissed her hand in greeting.

"It's alright, Darlin'," Jasper whispered with a quirk of his lips. "It's all in the past now."

"Long past?" Isabella asked gazing up at him.

His gaze softened as he stared down at her and, without seeming to be able to help himself, wrapped her up in a kiss, fingers tangling in her hair. It was short but nonetheless passionate and the firm 'yes' that Jasper whispered against her lips calmed her instantly. Isabella nodded.

"What do we do now?"

Silence fell again before Jasper murmured his response, his words a pained and almost desperate repetition of her own words to him, "what happened to you?"

His accent was gone and Isabelle got the impression that, like her, he rarely spoke with his southern accent anymore. His words caused her to try burrow in closer to him despite her murky memories. Her past was a bit of a blur, a mass of shapes and faces that she could rarely put names to or make sense of anymore. Jasper was always the clearest thing and her family. They seemed happy. Her life seemed happy from what she could remember. At least until the day it snowed.

"It snowed the day they came, you know," she said quietly. Her words followed by a wave of confusion from Jasper. "The day they came to tell me you were missing. It had never snowed before."

Jasper didn't say anything and Isabelle found herself without words as well. What did he expect her to tell him? That she was so miserable without him that she was happy when she thought she was dying? It wouldn't have been a total lie. 2 years. She had still been mourning. It had taken her the first year to accept that he was most likely dead. The first year had been spent in denial – she believed he'd come back eventually, that he was safe somewhere, that something would send him back to her. At the year make she'd finally accepted that that wasn't going to happen. She'd skipped anger then, jumped right to depression. She wasn't going to tell him that, didn't want him to have that on his conscience, but she did have something that she had to tell him, even if she didn't want to.

"Jasper," his body tensed beneath her as she breathed his name. "I was pregnant" – his grip on her tightened and she barely dared say the next words – "and I lost em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"her/em when…when it snowed."

She couldn't bear to look at him as she spoke the words. Part of her wondered what he was taking from her emotions when she could barely understand them herself.

"I didn't even know we had her."

Jasper immediately turned to actions at her final admission. Twisting so they lay facing each other, he sent waves of soothing emotions as he forced her to meet his eyes. Topaz instead of brown, his eyes burned into her own and she tried not to sob tearlessly.

"I called her Jasmine."

Jasper breathed out a short laugh and drew her nearer to press a kiss to her brow before burying his face in her hair. She felt him swallow before he spoke, "you still smell like jasmines."

Words that Isabella knew that Jasper was perfectly aware of flew to her lips and were vocalised before she could stop them, "I missed you. God, I missed you so much."

He didn't respond in relation to her words but instead asked the question she had been dreading most of all, "I meant how did you become like this, Isa?"

Isabella smiled softly into his shoulder at his affectionate address that only he used. Everyone else called her Bella, Izzy or Isabella.

"I don't think there was a reason for it," Isabella started with a heavy sigh. "They seemed so guilty about it, so regretful. He wanted to stay and help but apparently had to get back to his 'commander'? You always did warn me about taking walks in the woods."

"Probably one of the new-borns from the wars then," Jasper replied with a voice full of thoughtfulness and regret. A wash of painful sadness hit her causing Isabelle to twist within his arms.

"Were you one of them?" the guess left her mouth before reason could stop it. Jasper's jaw tightened and she instantly knew she was right. She may not have been in the southern vampire wars but she knew all about it. Her Jasper a part of it was never considered and a pitiful horror stole over her as she pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. It definitely explained the scars covering his skin.

Fingers moving of their own accord, she unbuttoned her husband's shirt without any movement of protest from him. A few sparkling scars greeted her as she pushed his shirt out the way and she gently pressed a kiss to each other them. Muscles tensed beneath her but he made no attempts to be anything other than a statue beneath her. With light movements, Isabella pushed the shirt of shoulder unsurprised by the further marring of the skin but sickened with despair at the marks showing where he'd had limps reattached.

Finally, he moved. His shirt thrown on the floor, arm coming around to cup her head. His lips covered hers desperately with a hungry kiss. She grasped onto him instantly despite her initial surprise and gave herself into the old routine of kissing him that her mind and body would never forget.

He broke away only when she was clinging to him and wanted to do anything but pull away to whisper one word, "stop."

"Stop what?" Isabella panted unnecessarily.

He grinned a cheeky grin and pulled her closer, "obviously not this, darlin'."

As he captured her lips with his again, rolling them over, Isabella realised his stop was to her own emotions, the devastation the rocked her at the sight of the damage people had dare put on her husband. He made quick work of distracting her.


End file.
